Commencement
Speechby Jane Alexander
Chairman, National Endowment For The Arts

Duke University -- May 12, 1996

President Keohane,
trustees, faculty, alumni, parents, friends and students. It gives me
great pleasure to be with you today at this rite of passage for the Class
of 1996, and I'm deeply honored to have this doctor of fine arts degree.
I am always grateful to be asked to give a commencement address, but particularly
so on this occasion at this most prestigious university, a place I have
long wanted to visit.

Duke
University is the alma mater of the second chairman of the National Endowment
for the Arts, the late Nancy Hanks, and her archives are located here
as well. Nancy Hanks was a great leader, a great woman. She is still revered
for her public service to the arts, and she oversaw the growth of the
Arts Endowment during her two terms in the 1970s. Under her leadership,
federal spending on the arts increased by 1,400 percent. She is truly
one of Duke's most distinguished alumni.

Another
reason I've wanted to come to Duke dates back to the late '50s, when I
was a freshman at Sarah Lawrence College in Bronxville, N.Y. A team of
parapsychologists from Duke, working with the famous Dr. Rhine, came to
do studies on some of us up North. Extrasensory perception was the focus
of their research and it turns out that I had a lot of it, this ESP as
it was called. After I correctly called a higher percentage than average
of the red and black cards, the hearts, the spades and so on, these researchers
launched into more intricate methods of evaluation. I was caught up in
this for most of my first year but I eventually opted for the life of
an actress. I really needed to be part of this world and not floating
off in the ether somewhere with extrasensory perception.

Now,
some might argue that an actor's life isn't very grounded in the real
world either, what with our peripatetic journeys in search of work, our
night-owl schedules, donning new characters and so forth. But the actor's
world is an intensely real world for our subject is the human condition.
We are students of human behavior, of emotion, of motivation, the language
of everything that is human.

Now
my new job as chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts has most
definitely been grounded in this world. My term as chairman of the agency
is, like your term at Duke, a four-year stint. I am now sort of in the
middle of my junior year. There have been extraordinary highs -- like
visiting all 50 states and over 150 cities and towns all over the United
States, experiencing the abundance and the versatility and the vitality
and diversity of the arts in America and seeing how people everywhere
-- in the smallest towns and the largest cities -- cherish their arts.

And
frankly there have been low times as well, times when I wondered where
was Nancy Hanks when we needed her. Our recent agency cuts, for example,
were almost 40 percent. The NEA has had its critics and I've spent most
of my time these two-and-a-half years defending the agency and the worth
of artists in our society. But politicians generally, it's no secret to
anyone in this country, have had a very rough time lately, and I have
had my share as well. For example, a few months ago, I went into a little
story to buy a soda and the fellow behind the counter said, "Did anybody
ever tell you, you look like that Jane Alexander?" And I said, "Well,
yes they actually have." And he replied, "Makes you kinda mad, doesn't
it?" It's a tough life for politicians these days.

There
may be some things wrong with government, but I have to tell you there's
a lot right, too. And I think that tends to be obscured in the rhetoric
today. For example, the arts endowment was created in 1965 to help make
the arts accessible to Americans everywhere, not just in the major cities,
and to attract money for the arts from the private sector, and in this
regard it has been immensely successful. For every dollar that we award,
we in fact are able to attract 12 other dollars from private and public
sources. In this way, we have helped to sustain thousands of thousands
of arts organizations and artists all across America, in every single
pocket, including North Carolina of course.

Yet
out of 110,000 grants given in the 30-year history, we've had about 40
that have caused some people some problems. And when that someone is a
certain senator from North Carolina, the whole country hears about it.
Well, in my tenure as chairman, I wanted the entire country to hear the
good side of the story as well because art, of course, is challenging
but it's also beautiful, and it's part of who we are individually and
as a society. Duke's own Nancy Hanks said this:

"It
is part of the essential idea of our country that the lives of the people
should be advanced in freedom and in comprehension of the tough and soaring
qualities of the spirit. This is not possible without the arts. They are
not a luxury; they are a necessity."

Now,
what I'd like to say to you graduates today, I do not possess the extrasensory
perception that could tell you your futures or predict the world that
you're going to inherit. But I do possess enough horse-sense to know that
some of you might have been partying -- and on Mother's Day! -- so I want
to leave politics behind for a moment.

Now
in addition to being an actor and a public servant, I am a mother, too.
And as a mother on Mother's Day, I am going to take some license and I'm
going to address you as if you were all my children. And I hope that what
I say is I echoed in the hearts and minds of your parents, your friends,
your teachers, and all those who have been part of your life here at Duke.
So here is my Mother's Day letter to you graduates:

My
Sons and Daughters in Spirit:

We
are all very proud of you. What you've accomplished in your time at Duke
has not been easy. Four years ago, you arrived as new citizens to this
campus. You were wet behind the ears, and the time stretched before you,
I think, when you came in as seeming infinity. In retrospect, the years
have vanished in a snap. It took a lot of commitment, I think, to stick
it out, to buckle down, to do things you really didn't want to do: like
exams, or papers, or research. It took a lot of growing up to get through
the heartache or maybe even the homesickness some of you may have felt.
But you've done it, and I think you should be very proud of your accomplishment.
I know all of us are.

And
I know too that we do have concern for you in today's world. When I was
leaving college, the world was quite a different place, not so fast. I
lived through the Beat Generation, and the Flower Child and feminist eras,
and the hippies, and the Me Generation, and the Yuppies, and now Generation
X and Grunge. What will you live through? What moniker will be hung on
you in the next 10 years or so? Well I hope it will symbolize the "I care"
generation, because I know a lot of people your age, and I know you do
care.

I
have great faith in you. You are alive and young and well educated at
a remarkable time in world history. You are well informed and you can
surf the Web when others of us just kind of wade in the shallows. You
actually know how big a megabyte is! You've seen the prospect of peace
in the Middle East, and the cease-fire in Bosnia, and the Beatles Reunion
(well, sort of ).

What
we ask, sons and daughters, for the years of room and board with Mom and
Dad (not to mention the help with tuition here at Duke), what we ask is
that as you become working citizens of the community, the state and the
country, that you take very good care of this world that you're inheriting
for the 21st century.

The
challenges are many, but if you know the questions to ask, and I'm sure
you do because you've had such an education here at this great university,
you are well on the way to coming up with answers to many of the problems
that we face. And you have immense opportunity now at the crest of this
new millennium.

Now
the year 2000 is not a specious symbol. It is a place mark in our Western
History. Philosopher Hillel Schwartz notes that there are really three
millennia ahead:

The
first is the year 1999. Just the thought of it is awesome and somehow
fraught with danger. It signals the end of things; it's apocalyptic; it's
an omen. If you feel bad about 1999 already, you'll feel a lot worse when
it arrives. I know some people who are really planning to spend the year
under the covers.

The
second millennium is the year 2000, a mid-point in people's minds, a time
of assessment. Not quite the 21st century, not yet really the 20th. In
2000, we as a nation will look back at what we've done, the messes that
we've made, just as we will try to find ways to move forward. A lot of
the political turmoil today comes from this unease, I feel. We want a
clean slate: balance the budget, shore up the family, protect our children
from harm, leave no tracks on the environment. You, the class of '96,
have much to say about where we go and the way we get there. And many
of the ways we get there is through the laws of our nation, and passage
of thoughtful legislation. So don't waste your voice in this democracy.
If you haven't started voting, start voting this year.

The
third way of looking at the millennium is as beginning with the year 2001.
A brave, new world, fresh-scrubbed. A time, too, for amnesty, I think,
to forgive our trespassers and move on. Where do you want to be in five
years?

Which
millennium will you choose? 1999, 2000, or 2001? Or a combination? Myself,
being an optimist by nature, I always think in terms of beginning of the
new millennium, the new century, rather than ending the one we're in.
No matter how you may look at it, Duke has given you the tools and great
opportunity to seize firmly the challenge of good stewardship.

As
your parents, we have cared for you; as your teachers and friends, we
have cared, and we ask that you do so as well. Take care of our environment,
our natural resources. This is one planet that we inhabit together, and
it is finite. We must keep Mother Earth whole and healthy.

Care
about the legacy that you leave behind. After all, when we think of places
that we have loved, we remember mostly three things: we remember the natural
beauty, the people and the cultural stamp of the place. Long after wars
are won or lost, art and science endure. Our cultural legacy tells the
next generation about the people who lived then and there -- how expansive
they were or how prosaic. Great people leave a great testament: beautifully
designed buildings, enduring stories in books or on film, timeless visual
art, and the legends of the ephemeral performing arts.

Lastly,
care about your fellow human beings. It is simply not good enough when
the greatest nation in the world steps over the ill and the destitute.
It is not good enough that one child goes to bed hungry or bruised or
uneducated. It is not good enough when we exclude anyone who is different
from ourselves. An indignity suffered by anyone is our indignity as well.
You have been privileged to receive one of the finest educations in the
world here at Duke. Live up to your intelligence. Others have cared for
you. Now, sons and daughters, it is your turn.

And
so, friends, children, I congratulate you on this day for all you have
achieved and for the promise that is vested in each and every one of you.
May life be all that you make it.

And
your mothers and fathers salute you on this Mother's Day. Thank you.

Sources: Speech
came from a page at the Duke University website which no longer exists.